Peter M. Barnes
3/27/2015

PETER McCALL BARNES 1938-2015

Peter Barnes, 79 Rumford Avenue, Mansfield, died peacefully Friday, March 27th at the comforting and caring Sunrise Senior Living in Cohasset, MA. He was 76 years old and had been ill with cancer and partially disabled for the past few years and final two months at Sunrise.

He was born in Attleboro, October 5, 1938 a week after the great New England Hurricane hit. The morning after, the Barnes family yard at the corner of Rumford and Villa looked like a jungle in disarray, with trees uprooted, broken branches, and debris everywhere. Peter’s mother, Doreen Kane Barnes, still in her 20s, was frightened and agitated by this onslaught as she darted from window to window awaiting her husband’s return home by train from his law office in Boston. He had been delayed by a tree that had fallen in front of the train, obliging him to walk a considerable distance during the storm.

Peter was educated in Mansfield elementary schools and The Forman School in Litchfield, CT during his high school years. He was a kind, considerate and cheerful person with an uncommon wisdom and loving nature. He lived his entire life in the Barnes home in Mansfield, and he spent every summer in the family’s home on Martha’s Vineyard. He was an optimist and well known in both places as a man who never said a disparaging word about anyone, always signing his cards or letters to his friends and siblings as “Your Pal, Peter”.

He was a hard worker, first at Mr. Bannon’s Mansfield Bleachery and, for many years afterwards, for Bob DeLong’s Acorn Manufacturing Company where he was a proud and happy “Man Friday” doing necessary jobs.

He was the eighth of nine children of the late Clarence A. Barnes, former Attorney General of MA in the mid 1940s, and a candidate for Governor in 1950. Clarence won three important counties - Bristol, Barnstable and Dukes - in his fight for the Republican nomination which was won by Lt. Governor Arthur Coolidge. Peter’s middle name was given in honor of Governor Samuel McCall, for whom his father was the campaign manager in the 1920s.

Peter's mother Doreen immigrated from Northern Ireland in 1915 at the age of 6 with her mother, Margaret Ingram Kane, aboard a ship darkened to avoid German naval attack. Here they joined her father, Thomas Edward Kane, a textile engineer, making their eventual home at Mansfield’s “Four Corners” (Willow Street and South Main) in an English Tudor-style house. The senior Kanes lived there for some 40 years before their deaths in the early 1960s.

Peter was a true lover of dogs, especially his last, Penny, a golden retriever; he could be seen by many neighbors and townspeople who remember him walking faithfully with Penny, in the Fulton Pond area in Mansfield and on Waban Park near the waterfront of Oak Bluffs, Martha’s Vineyard. A beachside bench facing Nantucket is dedicated to him and a great pal, Thomas (“Tommy”) A. Ashley of Belmont, MA, who lived at the Barnes summer home for many years. This bench commemorates their joy and kindness in bringing local children and visitors’ children on sunfish rides for many summers. Tommy and Peter made many trips together, memorably to Hawaii, where a nephew David McCullough, Jr. taught at the Punahou School in Honolulu, and from which another nephew, Erick Street, graduated. They also traveled to Colorado where a third nephew Geoffrey McCullough attended Colorado College; and from Los Angeles to San Francisco with his sister Margot and her son Erick.

Peter was also a great sports fan, hardly ever missing a Mansfield/Foxboro Thanksgiving Day football game. He followed the Patriots, the Red Sox, and of course the Celtics and the Bruins. He also attended many Yale-Harvard football games, notably in New Haven where his father, uncle, grandfather, two brothers (Sam and Clare Jr.), cousins, a great niece and great nephew (currently a sophomore and pitcher on the baseball team) all matriculated at Yale. Two brothers-in-law, David McCullough (Rosalee Barnes’s husband) and Neil Goodwin (Margot Barnes’s husband), are also Yale graduates.

He will be greatly missed by the whole Barnes, McCullough, Street, and Goodwin clan, especially by his loving and caring sisters, Rosalee and Margot, and his brother, Samuel.

He thus leaves his closest relatives, Margot and Neil Goodwin of Cambridge, Rosalee and David McCullough of Boston; and his brother Samuel Barnes of Pittsfield, MA.

Peter also leaves his Vineyard nephew Clarence A. (“Trip”) Barnes III, who brightened Peter’s life in many ways, and two nieces and one nephew on the Vineyard with their families: Beth Barnes Vought with husband Zeke; Jennifer Barnes Allgood with husband “Ollie”; and Marin Street with wife Dana Costanza Street. Other family members he leaves, also with their families, are his niece Doreen (“Dorie”) and T. Allen (“Tim”) Lawson of Rockport, ME; nephew Samuel A. Barnes and companion Julie Verchot of Lincoln, N.H.; his Florida and Vineyard nephew and closest neighbors upon whom he relied, Marc Street, and Meredith Slayton; niece Katrina Street of the Vineyard; nephew Erick with wife Laura Street from Venice, CA and the Vineyard; and the Streets’ French father Alfred E. Street (now living on Martha’s Vineyard); Margot’s stepson, Seth Goodwin and wife Kathy of Norwich, VT. He also leaves the McCulloughs’ nineteen grandchildren, Sam Barnes’s eight and Margot Goodwin’s seven.

Peter’s McCullough nephews and nieces and their children from nearby Hingham and Sudbury all deserve special thanks for their almost daily visits to Peter at “Sunrise” in Cohasset. They are William and Cissy, Geoffrey and Signe (with special mention of son Henry), David and Janice, and Melissa and John McDonald. William (“Billy”) has been extremely close to Peter and attentive to his needs, doing carpentry jobs in Mansfield and making innumerable visits to Mansfield and Sunrise. His nephews Davey McCullough, Erick, Marin and Marc Street, close summer Vineyard neighbors of Peter, merit special recognition for their frequent companionship and support of Peter especially during the summer months.

Peter was preceded in death on Rumford Avenue by his father, Clarence (“Clare”), and mother, Doreen (“Dodie”) and brother Thomas K. (“Tokey”) Barnes, the artist; and by four half siblings. He was also preceded in death by his sister-in-law, and Samuel’s wife, Joy Woods Barnes.

Peter’s sister, Margot, his only Vineyard-born sibling, devoted many years to his care and well-being, most especially in the last two years of his life. She worked tirelessly with a group of loving caregivers, led for the past 6 years by Linda McKenzie and joined a year ago by Hari Khalsa.

A Memorial service with family, close friends and interested townspeople will be held on Good Friday, April 3rd at 2 pm in the Congregational Church of Mansfield. His burial service will be held the next day, April 4th, at Oak Grove Cemetery, Vineyard Haven, Martha’s Vineyard, also at 2 pm, with reception afterwards at The Vineyard Playhouse, 24 Church Street, Vineyard Haven. All are welcome.

In lieu of flowers the family suggests contributions be made to Mansfield’s Congregational Church and Oak Bluffs’ Union Chapel. Ministers conducting the services are Rev. Ted Newcomb of Mansfield, and Rev. Cathlin Baker of the West Tisbury Congregational Church.

Arrangements are by the Sherman & Jackson Funeral Home, 55 North Main St., Mansfield.

To send Peter’s family a message of condolence,please visit www.shermanjackson.com

Sign
View Guest Book
Driving Directions
Print Page
Share
Sherman & Jackson Funeral Home
55 North Main Street
Mansfield, MA USA 02048
508-339-2000